Narnian Ba'alei Teshuva: Digory Kirke

What is complete repentance [teshuva]? A person who confronts the same situation in which he sinned when he has the potential to commit [the sin again], and, nevertheless, abstains and does not commit it because of his teshuvah alone and not because of fear or a lack of strength.

(Maimonides Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 2:1)

Maimonides in his magnum opus defines one who has achieved full repentance. Namely, it is one who finds themselves in the same exact situation in which he once fell prey to sin and this time holds back. 

I think this type of repentance was achieved by Digory Kirke. Recall, that upon visiting the world of Charn, Digory and Polly enter a hall of figures sitting in rows of chairs. In the middle of the room was a bell which promised danger to the one who rang it, but unrelenting curiosity to the one who did not. Polly was not interested in the danger and was ready to leave. But Digory exclaimed, "We can't get out of it now. We shall always be wondering what else would have happened if we had struck the bell. I'm not going home to be driven mad by always thinking of that," and physically restrained her.  

We all know what happened next. Digory did ring the bell awakening the Queen Jadis who, in Narnia, was to become the White Witch. Of course, Aslan turned the situation into a positive one. The same witch was to bring King Frank into Narnia and Aslan would eventually sacrifice himself to save Narnia. But what about Digory himself?

Unlike the Edmond who betrayed his family requiring Aslan's sacrifice, Aslan arranged a different (better?) means of repentance. Digory is given a task - to retrieve an apple from a faraway garden. With Polly and Fledge he reaches the garden only to find the same witch urging yet again. For, as we know, the apple is "the apple of youth, the apple of life," and all Digory has to do is take it, give it to his mother who is now laying on her death bed, and all will be well. " 'Oh!' gasped Digory as if he had been hurt, and put his hand to his head. For he now knew that the most terrible choice lay before him." 

A terrible choice, but perhaps one that he's seen before. Carry on with his mission or wonder forever whether things could have been different. The same situation, the same stakes (if not higher). But this time Digory holds back. He escapes and returns to Alsan.

Throughout the Chronicles, Aslan is reticent to let characters know what might have been. But this time he actually says so quite clearly. "Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and she would have looked back and said it would havebeen better to die in that illness." Why would Aslan reveal to Digory the might have been, but not to anyone else?

Perhaps because, at least in this way, Digory stands above them all. He is a true repentant, the one who faced sin knowing he had previously lost, but overcame. He deserves to know that his decision was right, not only morally, but on all planes. 

The Light of Darkness (Part 2)

In our previous post on darkness we discussed that, just as there are two types of silence, there are two types of darkness: complete darkness of dread and fear, and darkness which enables you to see something else. The total silence of the Dark Island was not disturbed by the sound of the oars, nor was the total darkness dissolved by the lanterns on the ship. But the silence of the Witch and dwarf enabled Edmond to hear the sounds of Spring, is there are parallel within the Chronicles in which darkness provides light?

I would like to suggest the answer is yes. One night, as the land of Narnia lay dormant ruled by the cruel King Miraz, the Tarva, the Lord of Victory, saluted Alambil, the Lady of Peace, in the heavens above. The great majority of those below were asleep, not even knowing the history of the past, they certainly would not look to the heavens to read the history of the future. Yet, two men from the King's palace stood upon the highest tower watching the conjunction. One was Caspian, Prince of Narnia who had been awoken by his teacher for what he thought was a lesson in astronomy. The other was an old sage, about to bare his heart to his young student, who knew that, as he peered through the darkness, he saw the light of redemption that he was about to spark. 

Dr. Cornelius knew that to light the fire the young prince all else had to be muted. Caspian had to see not Narnia as it was, but Narnia as it could be.  

The stars of Narnia dance, at Aslan's command, in time and step with prophecies of the future. But it is only in the darkness of night that the future can be learned. Keep on the lights and all you see is the present. Turn them off, and the future descends.  

Narnian Ba'alei Teshuva: Uncle Andrew

 Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny
(The Magician's Nephew)

There are few characters in the Chronicles of Narnia as detestable as Digory's uncle Andrew. His arrogance reigns supreme through the beginning of "The Magician's Nephew," climaxing in the above statement that enables him to trick a young girl into travelling to an unknown world. Upon meeting the Witch he becomes a sickening sycophant allowing her to ruin him financially. And when he enters Narnia he becomes a heartless entrepenuer willing to sell all of Narnia to make a buck. His mind and soul are so closed to God and spirituality that he hears Aslan's songs as a lion's roars, the kind words of the talking beasts as yelps and barks. 

Yet, by the end of the book, "Uncle Andrew never tried any Magic again as long as he lived. He had learned his lesson, and in his old age he became a nicer and less selfish old man than he had ever been before." After all the hardships he suffered he reevaluated, he changed. True he did not become a great man, maybe not even a good one, but he improved, he changed direction towards the light. 

Well, at least to a point... He still had one connection to that magician past:

But he always liked to get visitors alone in the billiard-room and tell them stories about a mysterious lady, a foreign royalty, with whom he had driven about London. "A devilish temper she had," he would say. "But she was a dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman."

Does this matter? Is looking back at the evil witch with some semblence of nostalgia reasonable or should he look back at that time only in horror and embarrassment? 

On the one hand this reminds us of the lizard on the shoulder of the ghost in The Great Divorce who promises sweet, fresh, innocent dreams. And Uncle Andrew is still left with that, his daydream that the Witch actually liked him. He cannot fully face that she was evil and he sinned, and therefore he cannot be fully forgiven. 

On the other hand, maybe in this world we just need a coping mechanism. Can we ever fully understand the evil of our ways? Would it not stymie us from being able to move forward. Perhaps Uncle Andrew was just being realistic. He knows what he did was wrong, but cannot face the ultimate truth, so he "harmlessly" whitewashes the situation. No one is hurt by a story of foreign royalty, Uncle Andrew gets some respect and interest from his listeners and everyone just goes on with their day. 

Clearly the first option seems more just. But at times, it is sin that is used as a stepping stone to finally come to God - our Sages at times have sins transformed into merits. 

I think this needs another post to further consider. 

The Light of Darkness

A number of years ago we did a series of posts analyzing two types of 'silence' as portrayed in the Chronicles of Narnia. To quickly recap, one type of silence is that of nothingness, the silence of dread, the silence that signifies complete isolation and profound loneliness. For example, when the Dawn Treader enters the sphere of influence of the Dark Island, “Though the rowing made a good deal of noise it did not quite conceal the total silence which surrounded the ship.” This type of silence is not just a lack of noise, it is being cut off from all that is good. 

The second type of silence is what we might call the expectant silence. It is the silence that enables you to hear something else. The prophet Habakkuk (2:20) demands this second type of silence from his listeners, "And God is in His holy Abode — be silent before Him, all the earth!" Edmund also experiences such a silence as he is forced to try and move the sleigh of the White Witch. “In that silence Edmund could at last listen to the other noise properly.” The momentary silence when the Witch and Dwarf are not shouting, enables him to hear as Winter turns into Spring and as his own religious transformation begins to unfold. 

I thought of these posts as we read in this week's Torah reading about the plague of darkness. Darkness is the ninth of the ten plagues God brings upon the Egyptians, and to me, it doesn't really seem to have the same power as some of the previous ones. Fireballs of hail, billions of locusts, those are plagues! A few days of Darkness? Well, I'm sure it's not comfortable, but it seems a bit weak for the penultimate plague. 

But then I thought as follows. If silence, namely the lack of hearing, has two types, then darkness, meaning lack of sight should also have two types. One type would be the darkness of dread, fear, and isolation as the verse (Exodus 10:23) says, "People could not see one another, and for three days no one could move about..." Similar to the darkness of the Dark Island, no human interactions, none of what we expect to see. It is what is meant when we might (R"L) say, "there are dark days ahead," That doesn't mean the sun won't come out, or that it will be cloudy, but that the usual goodness of life we expect won't be there. 

But there's another type of darkness, the darkness that allows you to see something better. It's why the lights are turned off in a movie theater - because you can see the movie better without them. So, maybe the plague of darkness was not meant to be the first type of darkness. Perhaps it was meant to be the second type. In other words, the goal of the plague was not the punishment of isolation and psychological warfare. No, the goal of the plague of darkness was to have the Egyptians see something else.

What?

Actually, the bible seems to say so explicitly (Exodus 10:23), "And for all the Israelites there was light in their dwellings." The only light in Egypt was in the dwellings of the Jews, the dwellings of the people who were slaves. Which meant that these dwelling were the only thing the Egyptians were capable of seeing.  

What did the Egyptians see?

Well, presumably they saw, maybe for the first time, the lives of the slaves. Their aches and pains, their grief and sorrow. Their attempts at family life and trying to raise their children in extreme poverty. No doubt it was nothing that they did not already know, but it was a way of life that they had never seen.

The plague of darkness was not a plague at all. It was God's last-ditch effort to pull on the heartstrings and persuade the Egyptians to see the errors of their ways. "Here," God was saying, "this is the misery you have caused. You have one final chance to repent."

Of course, we know what happened. Pharoah and the Egyptian did not repent and the final plague finally forced their hand.

But interestingly enough, our Sages say there was one day of darkness left... We'll have to see what happens with that one.  

Narnian Ba'alei Teshuva: Dr. Cornelius

My apologies for the long break from posting. Thank God all is well, and it was simply other things that other things got in the way. Chief amongst them is an article I'm attempting to write on the relationships used in Jewish liturgy to describe the relationship between God and Israel. But, let's return to Narnia... 

I wanted to return to our long series of posts detailing Narnian Ba'alei Teshuva. For those who need a refresher, a Ba'al Teshuva is a returnee. One who was never loyal to his or her faith and God (or at some point had given it up) and has now decided to return. Narnia features a number of such returnees, most famously Edmund, Eustace, and Caspian. Each is unique, as are well all, thus each can teach us something in growing our own relationship with our faith and with God.   

An interesting case is that of Dr. Cornelius. We know little of Dr. Cornelius before his appointment as tutor for Prince Caspian. Yet, it is he who cements in the young prince's mind that the legends of Old Narnia are factual history. He then joins Caspian's rebellion against King Miraz and is appointed Caspian's Lord Chancellor. 

Who is Dr. Cornelius and why does he see fit to inspire the future king with the past glories of Narnia so long forgotten?

The answer is not a mystery, in fact, Dr. Cornelius explains it himself. He is in fact, a half-dwarf who has spent his life researching and searching for Old Narnia. He knows the truths of Narnia and, as he says to Caspian, "But never in all these years have we forgotten our own people and all the other happy creatures of Narnia, and the long-lost days of freedom." 

Except for one problem. If Cornelius is half-dwarf, he is also half-Telmarine. Why does he put so much stock into his half-dwarf part? He himself knows that true Old Narnians may not even accept him! "If any of my kindred, the true Dwarfs, are still alive anywhere in the world, doubtless they would despise me and call me a traitor." Why not just let bygones be bygones and follow his Telmarine half, why attempt to join a people who may no longer exist and are certainly not bound by history to ever reappear? 

Of course, we don't know - what was the attitude of Cornelius' parents? Did they encourage his pursuit into Old Narnia or try to persuade him otherwise? Was he inspired by the majestic history of Narnia which was known to so few, and he wanted to be part of it? Did he recognize that there must be a true King Who told the story of history, and that Narnia was the main character? 

What we do know is that not only does he join Old Narnia, he becomes the inspiration of its savior. But perhaps he did not need the dwarf's blood to get him there... 

God as a Friend

Son of Earth, shall we be friends?

(Aslan to Trumpkin, Prince Caspian)

Hopefully everyone has the opportunity to do something for C.S. Lewis reading day. Personally, besides the previous post, I had the chance to listen in to one of the Pints with Jack livestreams (the one that started before Shabbos). I even got to type in some answers which were noted by the hosts. Specifically, I mentioned that Lewis would certainly have considered Jesus as his best friend. And while I think that is true, I do not think the concept of God as friend is at all obvious.

In Prince Caspian, Trumpkin the dwarf plays a major role in establishing Caspian as the head of the rebels against the evil King Miraz. He helps rally the troops, quiet potential arguments, and even goes to search for whatever help may come with the blowing of the horn. Yet, he does not believe in the old stories or in Aslan the son of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. It is only upon seeing Aslan with his own eyes is he persuaded at which point Aslan asks him the above question - shall we be friends?

How can someone be friends with God?

This was one of the topics I addressed in an article I wrote that I cited in the last post and Lewis helps us define what this could mean. In The Four Loves, Lewis comments, "Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest." Any love, according to Lewis, requires giving of oneself. What differentiates friendship from other loves is a shared common interest. Hence, to be friends with God one must share an interest with Him.

What interest can be shared with God?

In our world, God and the Jewish people share the quest of spreading the truth of the One God to all of humanity. Hence, Abraham who walks before God, is His friend. Abraham does not need God's to command him to spread His name. It is Abraham's quest as much as it is God's. Noah, to contrast, walks with God. He follows God's commands because God told him to do so. Noah is God's loyal servant, maybe even a son, but he is not God's friend.

In Prince Caspian, the common interest between Aslan and the Old Narnians was freeing Narnia from King Miraz enabling the Old Narnians to return as regular citizens. However, Aslan's interest was that the country should once again be faithful to the morality that he instilled, while others doubted that such morality even existed. That lack of overlap soured the friendship - what good is Narnia without its moral compass?

But Trumpkin learns to be Aslan's friend. He now knows that defeating Miraz is not sufficient and he has taken as his own to restore Narnia to its glory of, not only power and wealth, but of a moral society to be a light to the rest of the world.

C. S. Lewis Reading Day: A Noble Enemy (?)

This post celebrates the second annual C.S. Lewis Reading Day, spearheaded by David, Matt, and Andrew over at Pints with Jack. As I did last year, let me take a moment to congratulate to all of the societies, podcasts and YouTubers, participating in the Reading Day in commemoration of Lewis' birthday. May your efforts be successful in bringing God into a world suffering from famine. A famine which where hunger is not for bread or thirst for water, but for hearing the words of God (Amos 8:11). 

In aligning this post with the themes of the day, I will discuss one of my favorite Lewis quotes, and specifically one related to friendship (David mentioned this caveat on the Pints for Jack podcast, though I don't see it on the Reading Day website). I've already discussed this particular quote here on Torah from Narnia, but, as I did in last year's Reading Day post, I'll make this discussion about it a little more personal. 

In the Spring of 2020, I published an article in the Jewish periodical Tradition called "Four Facets of the Love of God." The article concretized ideas I had been considering on how to approach the command/theological imperative to love God. The main thesis was that one may approach loving God in several ways, for example, as a lover (an approach well documented in the bible), as a friend, as a parent, and so on. To define these different methods of love, I turned to the definitions given in C. S. Lewis' "The Four Loves." 

Shortly after the article was published, Tradition invited me to speak about my article and more broadly about Lewis with R' Mark Gottlieb. That discussion can be found here, and I thank R' Gottlieb for the opportunity to present my thoughts on Judaism and the writings of Lewis to a broader audience. Little did I know that the audience would not be entirely of Jews, but that one, David Bates, would hear this conversation. And so, in June of 2020, I received an email from David inviting me on to Pints with Jack. 

I have to admit, I was rather surprised to receive David's email. First, because I could not believe that someone would just randomly find my conversation with R' Gottlieb, and second, because I never really thought about a wider readership of C. S. Lewis. Reading Lewis was something I did and maybe a few people I knew had read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Sure, I guess if I would have thought about it, I would have realized that there must be Christian readers of Lewis, but I never thought about it and I certainly never dreamed the existence of Christian readers of Lewis would somehow touch me. 

After receiving David's email, I first went to see whether this was legit, and I listened to a bunch of Pints with Jack podcast episodes. I thought about it and discussed with my wife and kids, and of course I said yes. For those who follow Pints with Jack, I made my first appearance on the podcast in season 5 as part of Ecumenism month. I made a second appearance in season 6 to discuss "A Hebraic Inkling," and God willing, will appear again this season to discuss Joy Davidman's, "Smoke on the Mountain." 

My first time on the podcast, David asked me why I was attracted to Lewis, given my obvious theological disagreements, and I think the answer I ended up giving was that I appreciate serious attempts to strive for truth. There's more than that, of course. Lewis is an excellent writer, and insightful about the modern and post-modern world. But the strive for truth, and the opportunity for me to than clearly identify what I agree and disagree with, is what brings me to the quote for this year's Reading Day: 

Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble enemy the next best?

The speaker of this line is the Calormen, Emeth, who is literally named for truth. Thus, we must apply his words to the concept of truth. A noble friend is the best gift for he will teach you truth. But a noble enemy is the next best, because he will force you to defend what you believe is true and thus test to see whether it is true or not. 

Our Sages worded the same concept as follows (Avot 5:17)

Every dispute that is for the sake of Heaven, will in the end endure; But one that is not for the sake of Heaven, will not endure. Which is the controversy that is for the sake of Heaven? Such was the controversy of Hillel and Shammai. And which is the controversy that is not for the sake of Heaven? Such was the controversy of Korah and all his congregation.

Disputes for the sake of Heaven are those where both sides strive for truth. While disputes not for the sake of Heaven are those in which each side is looking out for only themselves. 

In some ways, I feel my presence in this world of non-Jewish theology puts me in the role of (hopefully) noble enemy. And I am inspired and so appreciative of the positive reception I have received. I'm coming with postulates that reject what others must take as a given. My goal in participating is not to promote Judaism, but to evangelize for investing time, effort, expense, and emotion, for the One God. All of mankind is created in the image of God. This fact assures, enables, and demands that every individual can and must have a relationship with Him.  

In the United States, C.S. Lewis Reading Day this year is on the day after Thanksgiving, a day in which we give thanks to our friends and family, and especially God Himself for the generosity He has bestowed upon us this year. Thus, today is the day for the next step. To go beyond simply acknowledging His presence and support, to actively working to fulfill His wishes and commands. And to look around, there are Sara Smith's in your vicinity - some are enemies some are friends. Both will help you along your journey, and we will return next Reading Day, to find ourselves raised and enlightened in the ways of God.